It was 1994. She was in her mid-30s. She was a lawyer with a law degree from Osgoode Hall and a BA in child and youth care from the University of Victoria. She had a law practice in Powell River.

She played a nickel slot.

She won $25.

“I thought I was over the moon.”

She started to gamble back in B.C. She would regularly travel to casinos in Nanaimo or Vancouver, where she had family. She would always play the slots. At the time, she told herself, it was a manageable distraction.

“In Nanaimo, I would gamble until all my money was gone. I would say I was pretty well addicted, but I was still working, and it didn’t take up all my time.

“This was before they had electronic games. I would play quarters and nickels. I would spend pretty much all I had, from $1,000 to $3,000 (at a sitting). I’d go back to the ATM until I couldn’t get any more.”

In 2000, her life and gambling routine changed when her health deteriorated. Over a two-year period, she had a series of surgeries, including an emergency hysterectomy. She suffered recurring infections and chronic pain. She tried to go back to work but couldn’t. Finally, she parted ways with her law partner, shut down her practice in Powell River and moved to Vancouver.

She found work in the legal community. (She asked that the name of her employer here be kept confidential.) And while her professional prospects withered, her gambling habit grew.

“When I lived in Vancouver, it was party central for me. All my money, when I got paid, went to gambling. It was like, get paid, go to the casino. I mean, I would miss my rent, I would not buy food, I would not pay bills. I had my hydro cut — and I’m working as a lawyer at this point. I would not see friends, I would cancel dinner dates, I would do whatever I had to do to go to the casino. Because my cheque was deposited directly into the bank, I would wait at the bank machine at midnight, and wait for that money to be accessible to me so I could withdraw the money and take a cab out to Burnaby. By then, I had given up my car.”

Her health worsened. She had more surgery. In 2005, her employer put her on disability. Soon after that, she was given permanent disability status and began receiving Canada Pension Plan disability payments.

“In effect I was written off. That was a real blow.

“And that’s when what had been a little gambling thing started to rear its ugly head.

“Of course, by now I was getting clinically depressed.”

With her disability insurance and CPP money, her income was about $4,000 a month. She lost it all to the casinos and the province’s online gambling site, which she had started to play.

“From that point on until 14 months ago — with a few little stints in between — I gambled it all away. I have stolen money from friends. I have lied to my family and friends. I have made up stories about where I’m going. I’ve been to rehab — that didn’t work — and I can certainly say I have come very close to (suicide).”

At one point, she was house-sitting the home of her best friend’s parents — “People who were very, very, very dear to me, people I regarded like they were my own parents” — and she signed over to herself the cheques they had left behind to pay the household bills, about $4,000-worth. She gambled it away.

Desperate, she entered a rehab facility in Calgary. She was there for two months. Within five months of her return to Vancouver she was gambling again. She then entered a casino and signed a three-year voluntary exclusion form which was supposed to ban her from any B.C. gambling venue.

“But it’s not like I stopped gambling. There are U.S. casinos not 15 minutes from the border and I would go down there to gamble.”

As for the effectiveness of her voluntary exclusion in B.C.:

“That time, I stayed away for about 15 months, but it was only my fear of getting caught that kept me out.

“Up until then, I was afraid that I would get caught and there would be a big scene. I didn’t want to be embarrassed. So I very, very gingerly went in and … nothing happened. I was let in.”

Finally, two years ago, when she was staying with family for Christmas, her sister demanded she exclude herself again and seek help.

“She said, ‘You need to come with me right now and we’re going to sign you out.’ And I had done the sign-out thing before, but as lots of people will tell you it doesn’t really work unless you want it to work. You could still go back in (to a casino) and nobody says anything.”

This time, when she signed the voluntary exclusion papers, she checked off a box that indicated she would like to receive counselling under the provincial government’s Responsible Gaming program. A month later, she received a call from a counsellor based in Campbell River.

“I was completely, completely convinced this was a waste of time. So anyway, I met up with this counsellor, and the very first thing I said to her was, ‘I think this is pointless … because I’m incorrigible.’

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Pete McMartin: Losing everything — portrait of a gambling addict

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